After playing MegaCorp for a while I'm brought back to some of the things that just annoy the heck out of me, especially since I just came from playing EU4 which handles some of them better. And some things that I've always thought about. I figured I'd float them here and whatever happens, happens.
1. Insult Casus Belli.
Once I get big enough to have a decent amount of shared borders, empires start throwing insults at me almost annually. In EU4, there's this amazing Humiliation Casus Belli that gives a great amount of personal satisfaction, but in Stellaris I'm just supposed to sit, grin and bear it. Please create a similar Casus Belli or remove the insults altogether. I'm thinking winning should damage the target empire's diplomatic reputation, making it harder for them to jump into defensive pacts right after the conflict. And maybe a timer before they get to insult again. Or, more elegant, a significant change in fleet power ratio between the two empires, to indicate that they've learned their lesson and won't insult an empire as long as they know they still won't stand a chance.
2. Message customization.
EU4 has this amazing feature where you can select whether you wish to pause and popup per message type. There are few things more annoying than Stellaris constantly nagging me about a culture shift by primitive civs just because I've set my Observation post to indoctrinate. Also, I'd love to be able to set the Research Completed as well as the Anomaly Found to be a pausing popup.
3. The new traders.
The new MegaCorp traders make their offer, giving me a choice of accepting, postponing or refusing. No matter what I choose, they just keep coming back over and over and over with the same offer. I'd like it that if I said "No, thank you." for them to stay away until they actually have something new to offer. It bothers me to be offered 5 times in a row if I'd like to give them a science ship or my Pops. I said no the first time, now get lost.
4. Governor AI
I notice that if I give a sector to an A.I. governor (I really miss being able to create my own sectors btw, this three-lane thing can get really messed up) and set it to Balanced, the first thing they build is a robot factory because my pops aren't growing fast enough, and then they build every possible district without caring about housing. In the end I end up with hundreds of robot-pops and a lack of housing (and very few Alloy factories). Not that the bots are complaining, but still. Maybe at least a checkbox whether we'd actually like to build robot pops rather than just the empire-wide policy concerning them?
5. Uplifting civs.
I notice that with the Feudal civic my vassals do seem to act independently. However, any primitive civ that I uplift remains completely static. Even if I gift them a system containing a gaia world, they won't colonize it. They won't claim nearby systems either. All they do it upgrade their home system's starbase and build an army. Army, not navy. That seems a bit wrong to me.
5. The Artisans.
Something that's always been sad is that the Artisans start out great with their newsletter and random popups with resources and stuff, but at some point they just go quiet. All they do is come back every 10 years to ask for more money. I'd love to see more events related to them, or maybe even rewards offered for being a contributor for a hundred years. In related news, maybe put an option somewhere for the Artisans and Curators to just auto-renew?
6. Collosi.
The choices offered for the mega-weapon depend on ethics. However, as a authoritative militarist race I actually love conquering all the enemy's worlds except their capital, then bring my Ur-Quan pacifier and seal their capital in as a message to them and everybody else what happens when I get distracted from watching Stargate to fight a silly war with inferiors. Now it is easy enough to research the Pacifier after the initial project, but in order to have it then, I need to disable auto-build, set all current designs to auto-upgrade and create a second Collosus design. In most cases, I leave the ship designs for what they are, so I'd rather just be able to select the Pacifier as an option during the special project. Maybe just ignore the ethics dependency?
7. Shielded worlds.
Speaking of pacified worlds, I'd really love to see more interaction there. If nothing else, at least replace the science base with an observation post and then do a few random popups about what's going on down there. Are they devolving to a previous age, are they starting a massive internal war leading to it turning into a nuclear winter, or are they going the way of GalCiv and building a massive fleet in the hope that one day they'll have their revenge? At least that would be nice.
Of course, it would be even better if there'd be a way to release them. Maybe a crack in the shield, or a Fallen Empire that has it. It would become a lot like uplifting primitive civs then.
8. Surveys
I often feel a need to send out half a dozen Science Ships right away simply because I miss out on so many story-content if I don't get to the unexplored systems first. I'd love it if systems didn't automatically become surveyed when another empire owns them, allowing me to still get the content when I conquer them later. That way I won't feel the need to overextend my empire right from the start and I can just start small. Maybe even stay small.
9. Abandoning colonies.
I know it's possible to resettle everybody to abandon a colony, but I'd love to see a button for it. I really like moving my capital to a ringworld and then just building ringworlds all over the place, including my original capital system (and world). It's very pesky that this is not possible. I do remember it being possible in the past to bulldoze and build right over habitable worlds though, but that has since been locked out.
10. Megastructure restrictions.
Finally (I think) maybe loosen the restrictions on megastructures a little bit? Like being able to build a Dyson Sphere/Matter Decompressor for every X amount of colonies rather than just the one. That way, it becomes possible to further specialize the colonies by using the megastructures to create energy and minerals. Right now, Habitats are useless. But if I had some Dysons and Decomps and a few farming worlds (how about creating something that will turn the whole planet into a farming world with farming districts being the only district possible?) I could really start specializing.
And yes, I remember in the past how the AI started building Dysons all over the place, vacuuming the universe one star at a time. But a one-only restriction seems a bit harsh.
Phew, that's them, I think. Been building since I first started playing. As a scripter I tried only to ask for realistic things, I hope I succeeded.
1. Insult Casus Belli.
Once I get big enough to have a decent amount of shared borders, empires start throwing insults at me almost annually. In EU4, there's this amazing Humiliation Casus Belli that gives a great amount of personal satisfaction, but in Stellaris I'm just supposed to sit, grin and bear it. Please create a similar Casus Belli or remove the insults altogether. I'm thinking winning should damage the target empire's diplomatic reputation, making it harder for them to jump into defensive pacts right after the conflict. And maybe a timer before they get to insult again. Or, more elegant, a significant change in fleet power ratio between the two empires, to indicate that they've learned their lesson and won't insult an empire as long as they know they still won't stand a chance.
2. Message customization.
EU4 has this amazing feature where you can select whether you wish to pause and popup per message type. There are few things more annoying than Stellaris constantly nagging me about a culture shift by primitive civs just because I've set my Observation post to indoctrinate. Also, I'd love to be able to set the Research Completed as well as the Anomaly Found to be a pausing popup.
3. The new traders.
The new MegaCorp traders make their offer, giving me a choice of accepting, postponing or refusing. No matter what I choose, they just keep coming back over and over and over with the same offer. I'd like it that if I said "No, thank you." for them to stay away until they actually have something new to offer. It bothers me to be offered 5 times in a row if I'd like to give them a science ship or my Pops. I said no the first time, now get lost.
4. Governor AI
I notice that if I give a sector to an A.I. governor (I really miss being able to create my own sectors btw, this three-lane thing can get really messed up) and set it to Balanced, the first thing they build is a robot factory because my pops aren't growing fast enough, and then they build every possible district without caring about housing. In the end I end up with hundreds of robot-pops and a lack of housing (and very few Alloy factories). Not that the bots are complaining, but still. Maybe at least a checkbox whether we'd actually like to build robot pops rather than just the empire-wide policy concerning them?
5. Uplifting civs.
I notice that with the Feudal civic my vassals do seem to act independently. However, any primitive civ that I uplift remains completely static. Even if I gift them a system containing a gaia world, they won't colonize it. They won't claim nearby systems either. All they do it upgrade their home system's starbase and build an army. Army, not navy. That seems a bit wrong to me.
5. The Artisans.
Something that's always been sad is that the Artisans start out great with their newsletter and random popups with resources and stuff, but at some point they just go quiet. All they do is come back every 10 years to ask for more money. I'd love to see more events related to them, or maybe even rewards offered for being a contributor for a hundred years. In related news, maybe put an option somewhere for the Artisans and Curators to just auto-renew?
6. Collosi.
The choices offered for the mega-weapon depend on ethics. However, as a authoritative militarist race I actually love conquering all the enemy's worlds except their capital, then bring my Ur-Quan pacifier and seal their capital in as a message to them and everybody else what happens when I get distracted from watching Stargate to fight a silly war with inferiors. Now it is easy enough to research the Pacifier after the initial project, but in order to have it then, I need to disable auto-build, set all current designs to auto-upgrade and create a second Collosus design. In most cases, I leave the ship designs for what they are, so I'd rather just be able to select the Pacifier as an option during the special project. Maybe just ignore the ethics dependency?
7. Shielded worlds.
Speaking of pacified worlds, I'd really love to see more interaction there. If nothing else, at least replace the science base with an observation post and then do a few random popups about what's going on down there. Are they devolving to a previous age, are they starting a massive internal war leading to it turning into a nuclear winter, or are they going the way of GalCiv and building a massive fleet in the hope that one day they'll have their revenge? At least that would be nice.
Of course, it would be even better if there'd be a way to release them. Maybe a crack in the shield, or a Fallen Empire that has it. It would become a lot like uplifting primitive civs then.
8. Surveys
I often feel a need to send out half a dozen Science Ships right away simply because I miss out on so many story-content if I don't get to the unexplored systems first. I'd love it if systems didn't automatically become surveyed when another empire owns them, allowing me to still get the content when I conquer them later. That way I won't feel the need to overextend my empire right from the start and I can just start small. Maybe even stay small.
9. Abandoning colonies.
I know it's possible to resettle everybody to abandon a colony, but I'd love to see a button for it. I really like moving my capital to a ringworld and then just building ringworlds all over the place, including my original capital system (and world). It's very pesky that this is not possible. I do remember it being possible in the past to bulldoze and build right over habitable worlds though, but that has since been locked out.
10. Megastructure restrictions.
Finally (I think) maybe loosen the restrictions on megastructures a little bit? Like being able to build a Dyson Sphere/Matter Decompressor for every X amount of colonies rather than just the one. That way, it becomes possible to further specialize the colonies by using the megastructures to create energy and minerals. Right now, Habitats are useless. But if I had some Dysons and Decomps and a few farming worlds (how about creating something that will turn the whole planet into a farming world with farming districts being the only district possible?) I could really start specializing.
And yes, I remember in the past how the AI started building Dysons all over the place, vacuuming the universe one star at a time. But a one-only restriction seems a bit harsh.
Phew, that's them, I think. Been building since I first started playing. As a scripter I tried only to ask for realistic things, I hope I succeeded.